Well, at least I am pretty sure St. Patrick’s Day is one of Evie’s uncle’s FAVORITE days. Right, Stephen? Yes? Oh yeah, he probably doesn’t read my blog because he’s busy being a college student. *eye roll*
And I am a fan of most things Irish. (Gotta try to talk Jared into watching “The Secret of Kells” with me again….)
Here’s Evie wishing you all a happy day of wearing green and not getting pinched by others.
When I came across this FREE pattern for crocheted baby Converse-style shoes, I couldn’t help myself. (Thanks again, Pinterest and Ravelry, for feeding my yarn addiction). I just had to make them for Evelyn.
Turns out, they are DARLING.
The first shoe took me a really long time to make. The pattern was really tough to follow and you kind of just had to pay close attention as you went with it. Jared found my frustration amusing, I think, as I may have cursed the creator of this pattern several creative ways under my breath.
By the second shoe I had gotten the maker’s style and was able to complete the shoe much more quickly.
Not too shabby, right? The first shoe probably took me four or five hours to make, but I think I cut the time nearly in half with the second. If I were to do it again, I think it would go even more quickly.
Oh, would you like to see these shoes on my lovely model?
Hmm… Nope. Bonnie photo-bombed, too. Let’s try again:
Huh. Still nope.
Guess it’s harder when the baby learns you can crawl away from the camera. I’ll have to try again sometime when my 8 1/2 month old will hold still long enough for me to take some better pictures of the product.
Another fun (not to mention QUICK and EASY and FREE!) pattern I tried was this barefoot sandal. This style is all the rage in the baby fashion world.
I did make little flowers to attach to the top, but this little girl’s daddy thought
I don’t think my eyes can roll far enough back into my head for this major silliness. Just imagine me with my hands on my hips saying, “Men!” in the most exasperated way possible.
I will have you all know that I had at least A DOZEN people stop me and ask about those “Ridiculous” sandals when Evelyn and I went adventuring to Michaels, Target, and the vet on Monday. (AND in case you were wondering, they all LOVED them and wanted to know where I had gotten them, JARED. I still love you even if we disagree on Evelyn’s style.)
Fun times for yarn in this household. I am making some other new stuff that I am excited to share with y’all soon!
Since there have been a few requests to capture this on video, and I actually remembered to do it today, I thought I would post this short video of Evie’s crawling adventures for you all.
For your viewing pleasure, everyone:
Enjoy. She’s a cutie!
I know, I’m behind the game. But life happens, and that usually gets in the way of my posts… even though I have had several great things to share that I’ve been working on!
Today, we’ll start with Evie girl. My little baby is growing up, and fast. She’s crawling around and getting into things, and that made our photo shoot a little more difficult than it had been in the past! I dressed her up in her “Formula One” racing outfit (we joke that this will be her outfit for watching the races with Daddy!) and made her “Eight Months!” sign, and well… She didn’t want to cooperate very much.
I got a lot more pictures like this:
or
And occasionally a more serious one like this because I kept moving the sign out of reach and she could no longer try to eat it:
But this little chubby-cheeked girl is simply marvelous. I cannot believe how much she has changed our lives for the better. She completely makes every day more exciting and worthwhile with her sweet smiles and trying to get into everything (and everything goes right into her mouth, naturally).
Once upon a time, I couldn’t imagine being a stay at home mom. It didn’t seem appealing to me at all. And now, I can’t imagine going back to work when I have this wonderful bundle of joy to keep close to me. Even her worst moments (like how she decided to be awake from 11 PM- 2 AM the other night) are so much better than some of the “Okay” moments of teaching in the past.
And her best moments? Well, I think this smile says it all:
As part of my first review, I got to select a free blog planner to look over and share with y’all. I was actually pretty nervous about this at first, since I am now the “Stay at home mom without a definite schedule”, so what do I need a planner for? Turns out this was pretty awesome for me. While there were several good picks to choose from, one in particular stood out.
World, meet Mama Jenn’s FREE Blog Planner for 2013. Colorful, fun, free, and user-friendly!
(By the way, “free” is one of my new favorite words now that we are on a stricter budget.)
I choose this blog in part because while it is specifically geared towards planning blogs, you can use it as a general calendar as well. There are over 50 pages you can print for this daisy themed planner, which you can either bind or hole punch and put in a notebook, like what I did, since I have so many binders left from my teaching days!
As you can see, there is the Month-At-A-Glance for each month where you can fill in various posts that you would like to do, the type, and if you are the planning ahead type (which I wish I were, but sadly am not!) you could even mark them as written and scheduled and ready to post on those said days. I also like this feature because I can write other events that are going on in my day/week/month and it keeps me organized, plus giving me the extra reminder to try and post a little more frequently than I might otherwise do.
Next you can see the “Major Blog Posts to Write” and To-Do’s associated with the posts, another thing to help with ideas. (I have moments of brilliance, and then I forget to write it down, and then you never get to see how brilliant I really am because I forget what I wanted to write about. Sorry. Having a baby really does do that to you.)
After that, there’s the “Giveaways and Reviews” section. This will be good for me as I go through the process of doing more reviews- I do NOT want to forget that I am reviewing a product. And who knows, maybe I will start doing some giveaways soon. Keep your fingers crossed!
Some other useful aspects of this planner are features like the Year at a Glance page, the Monthly Blog Statistics page, extra Notes pages, and even a page at the end for “Future blog posts” for the next year.
The file only has the Notes page as the last two pages. When I printed it out, I decided to print those last two pages of the file enough times to put it at the end of every month to have extra pages to write extra ideas, reminders, and miscellaneous thoughts that come out of my head at weird times. Or, if you don’t want to waste printer paper, you could always put loose leaf paper in those spots, too. 🙂
Year at a glance:
Blog statistics page (Something I needed help with!):
Extra handy dandy tabs I added to keep track of where things were:
So, overall, I am quite pleased with this planner. It wasn’t over-kill to print out with its simple, pleasant design with a touch of color from the daisies. I can use all the features easily and reorder pages to fit my specific needs.
If you are in the market for a new planner, particularly one to keep you more involved in the blogosphere, check out this choice. It might be the planner for you!
